“’Blackest Day on Wall Street in Many Years. Selling orders Swamp New York Market. Billions quoted. Values Fade’” (Shreve 133). Similar headlines most likely splashed across most newspapers on October 30, 1929, the day after the stock market crashed. From this date, the United States entered the Great Depression, the time period where the economy was at its lowest. Although signs were present, this era came as a shockwave to most citizens because the 1920s were times of extreme economic prosper. People’s lives were completely torn from their roots. They were left without any method to make a living, but used drastic measures to survive. The people became desperate and did whatever they could to buy food on the table. Anita Shreve depicts the hardships of the Great Depression through the novel Sea Glass via the lives of Sexton Beecher, Quillen McDermott and Alphonse, Vivian Burton and Dickie Peets, and everyone’s involvement with the Communist acts of Mironson.
Sexton Beecher is married to Honora Willard and his life with her is a strong parallel to the hardships of the Great Depression. They start off mediocre economically, but are drowned in debts once the Depression hits. The couple originally stays in an abandoned home for no charge, in exchange for keeping the place tidy. Both are enamored with the house and Sexton makes an effort to buy it. He forges the documents needed. The bank barely this checks over because during the 1920s, banks gave out loans like spare change. The banks were not circumspect of their actions, nor were they aware they needed this spare change later. Once the stock market crashed, banks were forced to repeal these loans because money was tight (Brinkley 670). Due to the rapidity of the withdrawal of l...
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...he lives of Sexton, McDermott, Alphonse, Vivian and their peers reflect the difficulty of the victims of the Great Depression.
Works Cited
Brinkley, Alan. A Survey: American History. 12th ed. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 2007.
"First hand Accounts." Oracle ThinkQuest Library. 20 Mar. 2010 .
"The Great Depression Statistics." Shmoop: Study Guides & Teacher Resources. 20 Mar. 2010 .
Nishi, Dennis. Life during the Great Depression. San Diego, CA: Lucent Books, 1998.
Nordeen, Ross. "America's Great Depression." The Amateur Economist. 28 Dec. 2007. 21 Mar. 2010 .
Shreve, Anita. Sea Glass: a novel. Boston, MA: Back Bay Books, 2003.
Yass, Marion. The Great Depression. London: Wayland, 1973.
The stock market crash of 1929 is one of the main causes of the Great Depression. Before the stock market crash many people bought on margin, which caused the stock market to become very unbalanced, which led to the crash. Many people had invested heavily in the stock market during the 1920’s. All of these people who invested in the stock market lost all the money they had, since they relied on the stock market so much. The stock market crash also played a more physiological role in causing the Great depression. More businesses became aware of the difficulties, which caused businesses to not expand and start new projects. This caused job insecurity and uncertainty in incomes for employees. The crash was also used as a symbol of the changing times. The crash lead the American peop...
The 1920s were a time of leisure and carelessness. The Great War had ended in 1918 and everyone was eager to return to some semblance of normalcy. The end of the war and the horrors and atrocities that it resulted in now faced millions of people. Easily obtainable credit and rapidly rising stock prices prompted many to invest, resulting in big payoffs and newfound wealth for many. However, overproduction and inflated stock prices increased by corrupt industrialists culminat...
"America's Great Depression and Roosevelt's New Deal."DPLA. Digital Public Library of America. Web. 20 Nov 2013. .
The Great Depression America 1929-1941 by Robert S. McElvaine covers many topics of American history during the "Great Depression" through 1941. The topic that I have selected to compare to the text of American, Past and Present, written by Robert A. Divine, T.H. Breen, George M. Frederickson and R. Hal Williams, is Herbert Hoover, the thirty-first president of the United States and America's president during the horrible "Great Depression".
The 1920s were a time of leisure and carelessness. The Great War had ended in 1918 and everyone was eager to return to some semblance of normalcy. The end of the war and the horrors and atrocities that it resulted in now faced millions of people. This caused a backlash against traditional values and morals as people began to denounce the complex for a return to simplicity and minimalism. Easily obtainable credit and rapidly rising stock prices prompted many to invest, resulting in big payoffs and newfound wealth for many. However, overproduction and inflated stock prices increased by corrupt industrialists culminated until the inevitable collapse of the stock market in 1929.
Waggoner, John. "Is Today's Economic Crisis Another Great Depression?" USA Today. N.p., 4 Nov. 2008. Web. 7 Mar. 2014.
In conclusion, The Baker family went through a lot through the great depression, and it affected there lives in many ways that they thought it wouldn’t. This autobiography on the troubles him and his family faced during the Great Depression. During the Depression, the major problems that Baker faced through the novel were about the financial difficulties that his family endured, ending in result of his father passing away, the struggles of moving from rural life to urban life, and the lack of Medical attention around the area. During the depression, in Morrisonville there was a common occurrence as many towns people died from common illnesses like phenomena, or whooping cough. This book has much to offer to teenage readers who are interested in the story of one individual’s growth, development, and struggles of his life in the Great Depression.
The after effects put a lot of families in serious, yet manageable trouble, and unfortunately, some into poverty beyond their financial capabilities. One example of this is the Cunningham family, who have to use entailments as a substitute to money. “The Cunninghams are country folks, farmers, and the crash hit them the hardest” (Lee 27). Another direct effect of the depression was in the time period between the stock market crash in 1929 and 1933, over 16 million Americans found themselves unemployed (The Great Depression Article). This statistic may have even included Mr. Ewell which then could have led to develop his lazy, grouchy and vengeful personality. Despite all the struggles for financial closure and stability, during the depression is when the US saw a massive spike in attendance at picture shows and interest in popular culture. Although Maycomb didn 't have a official theatre, Dill would always tell his best interpretations of the picture shows he saw back in Mississippi, and specifically recalled once spending a whole five dollars on twenty picture
Levine, Linda. “The Labor Market During the Great Depression and the Current Recession”. 19 June 2009. 6 March 2010. < http://assets.opencrs.com/rpts/R40655_20090619.pdf>.
October 29th, 1929 marked the beginning of the Great Depression, a depression that forever changed the United States of America. The Stock Market collapse was unavoidable considering the lavish life style of the 1920’s. Some of the ominous signs leading up to the crash was that there was a high unemployment rate, automobile sales were down, and many farms were failing. Consumerism played a key role in the Stock Market Crash of 1929 because Americans speculated on the stocks hoping they would grow in their favor. They would invest in these stocks at a low rate which gave them a false sense of wealth causing them to invest in even more stocks at the same low rate. When they purchased these stocks at this low rate they never made enough money to pay it all back, therefore contributing to the crash of 1929. Also contributing to the crash was the over production of consumer goods. When companies began to mass produce goods they did not not need as many workers so they fired them. Even though there was an abundance of goods mass produced and at a cheap price because of that, so many people now had no jobs so the goods were not being purchased. Even though, from 1920 to 1929, consumerism and overproduction partially caused the Great Depression, the unequal distribution of wealth and income was the most significant catalyst.
Certain classes felt the strife more strongly as well as certain races, sexes and areas of the country. During the worst of the depression, Chicago suffered through a 40 percent unemployment average in some areas. A glaring example of the struggle in that area comes from Wanda Bridgeforth in an article published by National Public Radio. Wanda recounts the majesty that was Bronzeville, the “Black Metropolis” of Chicago; where jazz artists thrived and African American neighborhoods were relatively affluent before the struggle. "In the Depression, the men could not get jobs, and especially the black men," Bridgeforth noted. "Here was my father with a degree in chemistry, and he could not get a job." Shes goes on to recount how humiliated he was and how that lead to a debilitating breakdown of sorts, leaving her mother in a sort of “live-in domestic worker” and forcing her parents to send her to live with her relatives. When her relatives could no longer provide for themselves she was then sent to the homes of charitable strangers. (cite 2)
The Great Depression often seems very distant to people of the 21st century. This article is a good reminder of potential problems that may reoccur. The article showed in a very literal way the idea that a depression can bring a growing country to its knees. The overall ramifications of the event were never discussed in detail, but the historical significance is that people's lives were put on hold while they tried to struggle through an extremely difficult time.
McElvaine, Robert S. The Depression and New Deal: A History in Documents. New York: Oxford UP, 2000. Print.
In the "Dawn of Affluence" J. Stevenson and C.Cook discuss the effect of the Great Depression on the world economy, in particular, the British economy. They start the account by contradicting the long held view of many, that the Depression was a time ."..of unrelieved economic disaster." Through-out their account, they point out many facts and figures that support their view, either neutral or positive growth figures, e.
The twenties was a decade full of new financial opportunities in a society unable to adopt so much so quickly. All of the new possibilities, such as credit and loans, led to greater debts and bigger holes to fill. Society began getting too deeply in debt and was becoming increasingly unable to get itself out. So, they began searching for alternate means of wealth. One extremely enticing instrument was the ever-growing stock market. Many people bought stocks low, hoping to sell high when the market peaked. But, as confidence in the stock market's "devotion" to buyers faltered, stockholders began selling as fast as they could. In turn, this rapid selling of stocks lead to the crash in 1929. Gatsby, like a stockholder put all of his "wealth" into Daisy. She was his only hope to escape his "impoverished" past, so Gatsby was left with no choice but to put all of his money into her (like the people of the twenties did with the stock market). When Gatsby and Daisy confronted Tom in the city that hot summer day, Daisy's devotion to Gatsby falte...